Our one-day trip to Bourges almost went awry. A few minutes after arriving at the Gare d’Austerlitz (well before dawn,) our train was announced as being delayed for an indefinite period, then, a few minutes later, it was cancelled. After consultation with an agent, we boarded the train to Orleans with a connection to Bourges. A trip lengthened by more than an hour… However, we didn’t regret having persevered because the city of Bourges is a charming destination for a day.

There are two important places to visit in Bourges: the Gothic Cathedral and the Renaissance Palace of Jacques Cœur. Our first stop was St Stephen’s Cathedral, built between 1195 and 1324. With a width of 41m, it is the largest Gothic cathedral in France and its beautiful stained glass windows dating from the 13th century compete in beauty with those of the Cathedral of Chartres.

L’extérieur est richement décoré de sculptures. / The exterior is richly decorated with sculptures.L’intérieur aux formes harmonieuses séduit immédiatement. Dans la dernière photo, on voit déjà les vitraux qui nous ont fascinés. / The harmonius interior immediately seduced. In the last photo, you can already see the stained glass windows that so fascinated us.Les vitraux ont retenu notre attention pendant un bon moment et nous sommes même revenu les voir en fin d’après-midi. Ce qui est intéressant c’est qu’ils sont au rez-de-chaussée donc plus facile à examiner que ceux de Chartres qui sont presque tous en hauteur. La qualité des détails était absolument époustouflante! / The stained glass windows captured our attention for a while and we even came back late afternoon to see them again. What is interesting is that they are on the ground floor which makes it easier to admire them than those of Chartres which are almost all very high. The quality of detail was absolutely breathtaking!

Thanks Mel. We have been lucky so far with the SNCF but this time was a bit painful though there were alternatives so we didn’t have to cancel our trip. The Cathedral is indeed stunning and well worth a stop if you are driving by Bourges one of these days!

The cathedral is awesome particularly when you thnink about the tools they had at the time to engineer a structure like that. The quality of the craftsmanship is well beyond anything built today. I think I would have spent the whole day admiring the windows – in your case certainly worth the trip back in the afternoon light.

Thanks Bekah. We set-out to see as much of Europe as we could possibly do during our stay in Paris. We don’t have kids and Pierre gets lots of vacation days so it is easy to do many trips. It does require a lot of advance planning but that is my role since I am not working while living in Paris…it has been fun and we still have a few more trips planned before we go back to Canada at the end of the year.

Well, I am glad our trips can inspire you. For us, the trick is to plan well ahead to get good prices and to ensure we are going somewhere. We have found that if we don’t plan ahead we end up not travelling…

I also follow this blog of an American family living in Germany (though I think they are now back in the States) who gives good advice on travelling within Europe with kids and on a budget.